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Top Tinker General Needs More STEM Grads To Meet Software Engineering Demand

Lt. Gen. Lee Levy II, sustainment commander at Tinker Air Force Base, addresses the audience during the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber’s Tinker Leadership Community luncheon Friday at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel in Oklahoma City.
Brent Fuchs
/
The Journal Record
Lt. Gen. Lee Levy II, sustainment commander at Tinker Air Force Base, addresses the audience during the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber’s Tinker Leadership Community luncheon Friday at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel in Oklahoma City.";

Tinker Air Force Base Lt. Gen. Lee Levy II says there aren’t enough computer scientists to meet workforce demands at either the base, or for private contractors like Boeing or Lockheed Martin.

Levy envisions the first signs of the next major war being electronic, when automatic teller machines suddenly don’t work, or the internet goes down, according to The Journal Record’s Sarah Terry-Cobo:

Levy spoke Friday at the chamber’s Tinker Leadership Community luncheon, held at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel. About 150 people attended. Workforce development is one major vulnerability the nation’s defense system faces and is as crucial as remaining militarily competitive, he said. . . . Levy said he has reached out to University of Oklahoma President David Boren and Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis to underscore the need for more graduates with STEM degrees. “I can’t hire them fast enough to meet the software sustainment needs of the future,” Levy said.

But Levy says he needs more American students to pursue computer engineering, because he can’t hire non-citizens to work on a U.S. military installation.

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Ted Streuli is the editor of The Journal Record, a weekday newspaper and online publisher of business, political and legal news for Oklahoma. He regularly reports for the Business Intelligence Report, heard each week on KGOU.
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